The
history of plant systematics—the
biological classification of
plants—stretches from the work of ancient Greek to modern
evolutionary biologists. As a field of science, plant systematics came into being only slowly, early plant lore usually being treated as part of the study of medicine. Later, classification and description was driven by
natural history and
natural theology. Until the advent of
the theory of evolution, nearly all classification was based on the
scala naturae. The professionalization of botany in the 18th and 19th century marked a shift toward more holistic classification methods, eventually based on evolutionary relationships.